Ten Best Keyboarding Hints You’ll Ever See

These came directly from the classroom. I tested them on 400 students for a year.

Hands down, these are the most common mistakes students make that prevent them from excelling at keyboarding. Besides good tips, you might find this a different ways of saying things, for those multi-disciplinary students:

Tuck your elbows against the sides of your body. This keeps your hands in the right spot—home row

Use your thumb for the space bar. That leaves your hands on home row

Curl fingers over home row—they’re cat paws, not dog paws

Use inside fingers for inside keys, outside fingers for outside keys

Use the finger closest to the key you need. Sounds simple, but this isn’t what usually happens with beginners.

Keep your pointers anchored to f and j

Play your keyboard like you do a piano (or violin, or guitar, or recorder). You’d never use your pointer for all keys

Fingers move, not your hands. Hands stay anchored to the f and j keys

Add a barrier between the sides of the keyboards. I fashioned one from cover stock. That’ll remind students to stay on the correct side of the keyboard

By Middle school and high school, kids learn keyboarding pretty quickly. I start them in kindergarten with age-appropriate software to prepare them. At that age, I try to get their posture under control and keep their hands on the correct side of the keyboard. Small goals! By third grade, I begin the focus on correct fingers, speed and accuracy. It starts to sink in around late fourth grade/fifth grade.

Interesting observation. I’ve looked at netbooks, considering buying one, and I thought the keyboards were pretty much full size. But you think they’ve been a problem? Hmm… I’ll have to try one out before I purchase. I’m a writer as well as teacher and keyboard constantly.

BTW–I like your new website. Great post about ‘dumb’ Facebook users. Aren’t we all getting darn sick of being called dumb for thinking outside the box?

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